Can you get a decent steak anymore?

[okie sawbones]

I like to cook beef tips and noodles occasionally. I use beef tenderloin tips and found some at Creekstone Farms for a decent price. I added on two prime NY strips.

When I opened the 'prime' NY strips, they looked more like select grade. They were seared 3 minutes per side, to a medium rare. Long story short, they were tough, very tough. The wife and I fed them to our dogs, who had no complaints. What a major disappointment.

As they say, fool me once, shame on you. I will place no more orders with them. Other suggestions on tender steaks?

 

[chopsaw]

I'm not buying many steaks these days . I've never bought into the mail order stuff .
I was cutting my own ribeyes , but to much money to do it now .
I did just buy a managers special 3 pack of ribeyes with some really nice cap meat . Marked " Down " to 23 bucks for the 3 . They were thin and only 8 oz. each . Good though .

So I go to the store and see what they have , then check the sell by date . Come back the day of , and see if anything is marked down .
I just did that with some chicken leg 1/4's . They were on sale for .99 a lb . I bought 3 trays for 4 bucks a tray . Came back 2 days later , and found them in the deal isle for 2 bucks a tray . So .50 cents a lb .

 

[sandyut]

Store bought is a roll of the dice. I did snag a few SRF NY strips. those were quite good.

But as Rich said, I dont by too many these days, or beef in general. its so costly. And I feel like the overall quality is down from a decade ago.

 

[jcam222]

I'm pretty spoiled on small farm local beef. Steaks that are fork tender every time.

 

[okie sawbones]

I'm pretty spoiled on small farm local beef. Steaks that are fork tender every time.

We tried a local guy that raises nice black angus beef. It was a bust. The closest meat market to us is an hour away. So gas costs defray the extra cost of mail order.

 

[normanaj]

So I go to the store and see what they have , then check the sell by date . Come back the day of , and see if anything is marked down .

This has been my strategy for some time now.

 

[Colin1230]

We don't have beef on the menu near as often as we used to. Not because of the price but because of our diets have changed as we have gotten older. We buy ground beef with our normal grocery list but anything else comes from Costco. We do the five pack of thick cut strip steaks for around $75 and vac seal into individual steaks. The quality has always been great, often better than the choice label. One steak is enough for both of us so they last a good long while.

 

[sandyut]

We don't have beef on the menu near as often as we used to. Not because of the price but because of our diets have changed as we have gotten older. We buy ground beef with our normal grocery list but anything else comes from Costco. We do the five pack of thick cut strip steaks for around $75 and vac seal into individual steaks. The quality has always been great, often better than the choice label. One steak is enough for both of us so they last a good long while.

We pretty much do the same thing. Costco steaks are usually pretty large and we are not young, appetites and diets have definitely changed.

 

[ajbert]

The only beef we have bought for years have been rib eyes as we hunt deer and elk. I'm very picky about what rib eyes I do buy. We have a Safeway and a small chain grocery store called City Market in the closet town that usually have the best meat hands down within 50 mile of the house. Got lucky over the last two times going into City Market as they had big thick bone in rib eyes on sale up front. First time I got 3 packs of 2 steaks in each pack at $10.99/lb, second time 2 packs at $8.99/lb. Each individual steak weighs 2lbs +/-. Yes, they are on sale because the due date was getting close. Yes, we've had steak night from both trips. Yes, they were very good.

If I had bought them on the normal meat aisle the would have been $23.99/lb! I look at them more as slightly aged beef than something ready to throw out. Vac sealed them when we got home but kept one off to the side for dinner. Plenty of meat for the wife and I with some trimmings for the dog's breakfast in the morning.